US sues to lower prices of e-book best-sellers

Attorney General Eric Holder listens during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Wednesday, April 11, 2012. The Justice Department and several states have sued Apple Inc. and major book publishers, alleging a conspiracy to raise the price of electronic books that Attorney General Eric Holder says cost consumers millions of dollars. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
— AP

Attorney General Eric Holder listens during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Wednesday, April 11, 2012. The Justice Department and several states have sued Apple Inc. and major book publishers, alleging a conspiracy to raise the price of electronic books that Attorney General Eric Holder says cost consumers millions of dollars. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
/ AP

According to Pozen, Apple's Steve Jobs told publishers involved in the alleged conspiracy that "the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway."

The lawsuit said the effort to get e-book prices increased by Amazon.com came as Apple was preparing to launch the iPad. The government said the conspirators agreed that instead of selling books to retailers and letting them decide what retail price to charge, the publishers would convert the retailers into "agents" who could sell their books but not alter the publisher-set retail price. The scheme called for Apple to be guaranteed a 30 percent commission on each e-book it sold, the lawsuit said.

"To effectuate their conspiracy, the publisher defendants teamed up with defendant Apple, which shared the same goal of restraining retail price competition in the sale of e-books," the lawsuit said.

The European Union conducted an investigation that paralleled the U.S. probe. The Union's Joaquín Almunia, vice president of the commission in charge of competition policy, said in Brussels that he welcomes the fact that the five companies are making proposals to reach an early resolution of the EU case. "We are currently engaged in fruitful discussions with them," said Almunia.

Hachette denied it was involved in any conspiracy to illegally fix the price of e-books and said it changed its pricing structure - the central government allegation - to facilitate entry by a new retail competitor, Apple.

"Two years ago, Amazon effectively had a monopoly on the sale of e-books and e-readers, and was selling products below cost in an effort to exclude competitors," said Hachette.

Amazon called the settlement "a big win for Kindle owners, and we look forward to being allowed to lower prices on more Kindle books."

After reading the federal complaint, the Consumer Federation of America called it "a `slam-dunk' case of collusive, anti-competitive behavior."

At Apple, spokesman Tom Neumayr declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Macmillan CEO John Sargent said in a letter to authors, illustrators and agents that the company has not settled because it is "hard to settle a lawsuit when you know you have done no wrong."

Sargent said there were months of discussions with the Justice Department over a possible settlement, but the government's proposed terms "were too onerous" and "could have allowed Amazon to recover the monopoly position it had been building before our switch to the agency (pricing) model."

"We also felt the settlement the DOJ wanted to impose would have a very negative and long-term impact on those who sell books for a living, from the largest chain stores to the smallest independents." he said.

Sargent denied he colluded with competitors to change Macmillan's pricing. "After days of thought and worry, I made the decision on January 22nd, 2010, a little after 4:00 AM, on an exercise bike in my basement. It remains the loneliest decision I have ever made, and I see no reason to go back on it now," he wrote.

"We have done nothing wrong," said Penguin Group's chairman and CEO, John Makinson. "The decisions that we took, many them of them costly and difficult, were taken by Penguin alone."